Civic action for poverty eradication

Poverty reduction, paramount to the present aid agenda

Tags: Southern Africa , Civil Society Building
Additional tags: Civic action poverty eradication Africa

Poverty reduction is paramount to the present aid agenda. The renewed focus on poverty issues is a response to failures of aid strategies in the past, including the structural adjustment programmes, the huge build-up of debt in many developing countries, and the failure by many governments in the South to ensure welfare and prosperity for their citizens. New aid mechanisms have been arranged in a series of international agreements, including the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the Paris Declara-tion of 2005, updated in the Accra Agenda for Action in September 2008. The agreements have highlighted that all actors in the development process carry the responsibility to make poverty history, the multilateral and bilateral donors, the national governments, civil society and the private sector.

The donors’ intention to hand over the responsibility for the management of aid funds to national governments, has been accompanied by a request for more involvement of a wide range of national actors in policy design and implementation. This call for national or country ownership has put the civil society organisations (CSOs) in the South centre stage. In many African countries, civil society organisations have been formed or re-organized for the purpose of participating in the poverty reduction strategy process, in its formulation and in the monitoring of its implementation. Funds for conducting this work have come from bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental (NGO) donors.

The experiences of these (coalitions of) civil society organisations have been widely documented, including in studies in Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia undertaken as part of the Hivos-ISS Knowledge programme on civil society building (Banya 2006, Engel 2006, Banda 2007). Unanimously, the studies point to the problems experi-enced by CSOs in playing their role in the policy process, ranging from being sidelined by the government to be-ing influenced by the donor community. So far, the studies in the Knowledge Programme have highlighted the concerns and frustrations from the point of view of the CSOs involved. From another perspective one could also question the very role of CSOs in the policy arena, their legitimacy, the unrealistic expectations of participatory processes, the (lack) of mechanisms of accountability and the selective nature of the organisations involved. Par-ticipating organisations have often been chosen by donors and governments, while parliaments and a wide range of civil society have been marginalized in the process (World Bank 2003, evaluation of the Comprehensive Devel-opment Framework) A similar concern is raised by the NGO think-tank FRIDE, which stresses the importance of moving beyond the exclusive NGO participation towards including citizens at large, parliaments and public oversight institutions (Meyer and Schulz, 2008).

The extensive documentation about the involvement of civil society organisations in poverty-monitoring, PRSP-monitoring, budget-monitoring, etc. is not paralleled by a similar quantity of information and analysis of the role and performance of formal institutions in these processes, notably national parliaments and local councils. A lit-erature review, conducted as part of the Knowledge Programme, brought out a limited but valuable number of documents. Eberlei (2007) records that 12% of PRS countries have mechanisms in place for a systematic dialogue between governments and country stakeholders. In just one third of the countries, parliaments are involved in some way, while only Ghana and Uganda have involved parliaments sufficiently (Eberlei 2007: para 23). Eberlei recalls that the launch of the PRSP in 1999, which links debt relief to poverty reduction, pushed governments in the South to invite CSOs at the negotiation table. In his view “the honeymoon is over”. He calls it misleading to simply scale-up the ‘participation ladder’ from the project level to the national level and to demand ‘joint decision making’. “The final responsibility in a democratic society rests with the elected bodies” (Eberlei 2007, para 36). Discussing the situation in Mozambique, Francisco and Matter (2007) raise similar concerns about the role of CSOs in policy decision-making. How influential can it be given its unbinding character? Will it be possible and desirable to develop a legal framework for the role of CSOs to enhance its position, or is the current support to CSOs for this task actually betting on the wrong horse and should, instead, organs with formal legislative powers (i.c. parliaments) be strengthened to better perform its role to control government?

These concerns touch on the very position of civil society organisations as intermediaries between state and citizens, on their role in holding the state accountable vis-a-vis citizens, as well as on their own accountability towards these same citizens.

Objectives and motivation of the study
The rationale for this study on civic action for poverty reduction aims to find an answer to the question if and under what circumstances citizen organisations can play a role in policy processes, holding their government ac-countable for poverty reduction. It will focus on the dynamics and effectiveness of civic actions and it will analyse the contribution of external support to the process.

In line with the overall objectives of the Southern Africa research programme, this study has three, broad motiva-tions. Firstly, this research intends to critically analyse the role of civic actors as intermediaries between the state and citizens. Secondly, this research intends to explain the potential practical implications of this critical un-derstanding for (partner) organisations, practitioners and the various external actors that support their work. Thirdly, this research intends to critically engage scholars and practitioners on these implications, reflecting upon future civic action efforts.

Major research questions
The study will follow the three major research questions of the Knowledge Programme, adapted to the topic:
1) What are the dynamics of the advocacy work of CSOs in policy debates and poverty monitoring? How relevant and effective is their role for these purposes? Are there negative side effects of the role taken by / allocated to CSOs in these processes? How do CSOs interact / form alliances with other organs for citizen participation, especially with parliaments and local councils? What are the formal roles and respon-sibilities of the elected bodies with regard to poverty policies and how do they perform?
2) How have external actors (international donors and NGO donors) contributed to the dynamics mentioned under 1?
3) How has the role played by CSOs contributed to structural changes in the unequal balance of power in soci-ety?

The study will document and analyze experiences in a number of African countries (Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania) of CSO-participation in policy-making and poverty-monitoring. It will make a distinction be-tween actors and activities at the national level and at the local level, and review the experiences of both catego-ries. It will analyze the role and performance of CSOs vis-à-vis the role and performance of elected bodies in this process, including the interaction between the two categories of actors, thereby also raising the question if CSOs in fact are not crowding out other (authentic / sovereign) organs for citizen participation. Thus, the study will bring together issues identified at the consultative workshop in Johannesburg on accountability, social change, and coalition building & alliances. The issues of 'leadership' and 'gender equality' - also identified at the consultative workshop - will be addressed as cross-cutting themes in the various case studies proposed under 3.5.

Research methodology
The study will be conducted jointly by researchers from the region and from ISS. It will include three main phases:
1. Literature search – a further literature search is necessary to understand the current state of affairs on the issue and to establish a theoretical framework
2. Field research – collection of primary data will be undertaken in several countries, hopefully at least Mo-zambique and Zambia. This research will include Hivos partners, other CSOs, and research institutes in the region
3. Workshops in the region with the actors involved to establish a common research framework and – at a later stage - to share and synthesize findings